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Even though none of the remaining soaps are very good (at least not consistently) but most of us can agree that their absence would not only leave a void but it would be sad, since this would mark the end of an era.

This article that I read in the NY Times seems to speculate that a strike would mean the end of daytime soaps. The word the article uses is "death knell", to be precise.

I'm not sure whether the author is being dramatic and I don't want to sound like an alarmist or like I'm being melodramatic but I wonder what you all think about this?

It was exactly 10 years ago (2007) that the last WGA strike occurred and within two years Guiding Light went off the air, the next year As The World Turns left the airwaves two years later there were more cancellations of soaps.

I never thought about the aftermath of the WGA strike having any effect on those subsequent cancellations but is it possible that the strike could've been a factor, at all?

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I can't believe some of these writers want more money for the garbage they put on the air.

I don't think it's a money issue (at least not entirely), I think it has mostly to do with the health plan. It's similar to other unions that are squaring off with their employers who often either want to cut back benefits or have the employees pay more out of pocket for their health benefits.

The article also states that many networks have cut the number of episodes per season, so writers, are not writing as many episodes as they used to + these TV networks often make writers sign exclusivity contracts where writers are not allowed to write elsewhere while under contract.

Perhaps if TV writers were not reigned into the exclusivity clause, this might be a path to the negotiating table.

I do think healthcare is truly the stumbling block.

As for Fi-Core, while I was in grad school, one of my Professors, who at the time was the spokesman for the WGAEast, warned us that, as tempting as it must be to work as a "scab" (he didn't use that word though), if we did, even though we were not members. we would never have the chance to become a member of the Writer's Guild.